IPA Tutorial: Lesson 1

Just what is the International Phonetic Alphabet (or IPA)? I often use the IPA on
this blog and a number of our accent training resources. You will see it used on
countless other linguistics websites as well.
If you have no idea what Im talking about, take a look at this sample:

wt z i a pi e

You may have seen this kind of writing in the pronunciation section of a dictionary
definition. As you can see from the snippet above, the IPA looks like normal English
writing, but with some bizarre letters thrown in.

So what is this weird alphabet and why is it so important when studying language?

The International Phonetic Alphabet in a Nutshell

The International Phonetic Alphabet is like any alphabet, except that, where most
alphabets form the words of a language, the IPA represents the sounds of a
language. Any language, in fact: the IPA can represent nearly any vowel or
consonant made by humans.
This guide is not designed to explain every nuance of the IPA. Rather, I am going to
give you the information you need to start using the IPA. The IPA is like a
language: just as you dont need to memorize every word in the dictionary to use
English, you dont need to know every single symbol in the IPA to starting using it.

But enough introduction. Lets get started!

How Are Vowels Made?

For the first lesson of our tutorial of the International Phonetic Alphabet, were going
to take a look at the vowel sounds. Before we look at the vowel symbols of the IPA,
it helps to know a bit about how vowels are made.
How Humans create Vowel Sounds

Lets do a little experiment. Make a couple of vowel sounds, like the ah in the word
father, and the eee in the word feet. Make any combination of vowels. It
doesnt matter what they are.
You may notice something when you make these sounds. Your tongue is moving
into a lot of different parts of the mouth to create them. That is because vowels are
mostly created by the tongue being in a particular position.
For instance, to make the long eee sound, I move the tip of my tongue to the
topmost, front-most part of my mouth. To make the long ah sound I do the
opposite: I keep my tongue at the bottom of my mouth.
This is a simple explanation of the process. Most people pronounce vowels using
many parts of the vocal apparatus, such as the lips and the jaw. But for the time
being, the tongue position is the important thing to understand. If you raise your
tongue toward the roof of the mouth, you create one sound; if its pushed toward the
front of the mouth it creates another sound, etc.
Got it? Okay. Right now youre probably asking, werent we supposed to learn
some crazy alphabet? Dont worry. Now were getting to the good stuff!

How the IPA Represents Vowels

Okay. Weve now established that tongue position is important for creating vowel
sounds.

So how does the International Phonetic Alphabet represent this tongue action? To
answer this question, lets take a look at the standard IPA chart for vowels:

Wikimedia

Above youll see large number of symbols, some of them recognizable (like i) and
others which look like gobblety-gook (like ). Dont worry about what these symbols
mean for now. And dont worry about any of the text on the chart.
Whats important about this chart is the where each symbol is placed in relation to
the other symbols. The rule of thumb for this chart is as follows:
The vowel symbols on the IPA vowel chart are in the position where the tongue is
placed when creating a vowel.
Lets break this down with some examples:

The IPA symbol [i] represents the vowel in American English feet. This vowel is
pronounced with the tongue high and toward the front. The IPA symbol [], the
vowel in father, has the tongue low and to the back. And the IPA symbol [u] (the
vowel in American English goose) has the tongue high in the mouth and pulled
toward the back. Each of these symbols appear on the chart above in about the
position that you have to move your tongue to produce them.
But this doesnt explain all of the symbols in the diagram, does it?
Rounded and Unrounded Vowels in the International Phonetic Alphabet

You will notice that most positions in the IPA chart above have two symbols next to
each other. The symbol on the left is for an unrounded vowel, meaning that the lips
arent rounded when you pronounce the sound. The symbol on the right of these
positions is the rounded version, meaning the lips are rounded when you pronounce
the sound.
So, from the IPA chart above, we can deduce the following:

/y/, /u/, /o/ and // are all examples of rounded vowels.

/i/, //, //, and /a/ are all examples of unrounded vowels.
To clarify, a rounded vowel is a vowel like the oo in room, while an unrounded
vowel might be the ee in fee. Its pretty simple principle, really: you will notice that
your lips round slightly as you make some vowel sounds, and stay unrounded while
making others.

IPAs Stand Alone Vowels

Scroll back up to the IPA chart and take a look at it. Ill wait down here.

You back? Good. Youll notice on the IPA Chart that there are several vowels that
do not appear in pairs. These vowels are: //, //, // and //. // is a rounded
vowel, while the rest of the stand alone vowels are unrounded.
The reason these vowels do not come in pairs is that no languages have been
identified which have rounded vowel phonemes in these positions. If what Ive just
said completely baffles you, dont worry. Ill explain what phonemes are in a later
lesson. For now, whats important about these vowels is that they operate in the
same way the other symbols do on the IPA chart: they represent where the tongue
is place to make them.

Next youll have more examples from an easy to understand IPA chart
i The ee in Fleece in most varieties of English.

The i in Kit in American & most British dialects

The e in Bet in Australian English. Also, the first vowel in the dipthong
e face in American English.

The e in Dress in most American and British dialects.

The a in Cat in American English.

a in Scottish English father or a in Italian and Spanish. The first sound in

a the American English dipthong kite

This is the lax, neutral sound in American and British comma or afraid. It is
called the Schwa.

The a in father in most American and British accents. The o in not in

American English

The o in lot in most British dialects. The ough in thought in Standard

American English

The ough in Thought in Standard British and some American accents.

The u in Strut in American English.

The oa in Goat in many Irish Accents. The ough in thought in many

modern British accents. Also, the first vowel in the dipthong goat in
o American English.

The vowel in Foot or could in American English and Standard British

English.

u The vowel in goose in American English.

 Like the ee in American English fleece except with the lips rounded. Can
be heard in a few Scottish dialects in the word goose. This is also the u in
y French tu.

Like the i in American English kit, except with the lips rounded. Some
London and Scottish accents use this to pronounce Goose.

Like the eh in bet, except with the lips rounded. Used in very few English
dialects. The ur in nurse in strong New Zealand accents.

Like the eh in bet, except with the lips rounded (like [2] above, only with
the tongue a bit lower). Used in very few English dialects. Possibly the ur in
nurse in very strong Cockney accents.

The u in Strut in many modern British dialects. This sound is

like /a/ described above, except with the tongue very slightly higher in the
mouth.

A bit like the ur in nurse in standard british English. The middle of the
tongue is placed more or less in the middle of the mouth, and the lips are
unrounded.

Like // above, except the lips are rounded.

Like // above, except with the tongue very slightly higher in the mouth.

Like above, except with the lips rounded.

This is a fairly common sound in English, but requires a bit of explanation.

This is the oo sound in goose as it is pronounced in many London
dialects, California English and many Scottish dialects. It is like the oo in
Standard American goose, except with the tongue drawn further forward in
the mouth.

Like // above, except the lips are not rounded.

Like /o/ above except the lips are NOT rounded. Extremely rare in English
and most other languages for that matter. A bit like the u sound in
Japanese.

Like /u/ above, except the lips are NOT rounded. Like // above, this is very
rare in English and other languages. Again, its a bit similar to the u in
Japanese.
IPA takes a little while to get used to, but once you get it, its easy to understand!

Copright (c) 2011 by Ben Trawick-Smith. All rights reserved